Stanley Stone Distinguished Lecture Series

About the Stanley P. Stone Distinguished Lecture Series

Stanley P. Stone
Stanley P. Stone (CGS’64, Questrom’66)

The Stanley P. Stone Distinguished Lecture Series brings notable, inspiring speakers to the College of General Studies (CGS), inviting the CGS and BU community to broaden their educational experience related to one of the College’s academic division areas: humanities, social science, natural sciences, or rhetoric. Lecture topic areas span the genres, from environmental change and violent conflict to the biology of viruses and public health; from racism in the U.S. to musical theatre and the American urban experience; from the evolution of goodness to American foreign policy. Instituted in 1989, the College is grateful to offer this enriching experience on an annual basis, made possible by the generosity of Stanley P. Stone (CGS’64, Questrom’66).

This year’s event:

Becoming-Africanist, Gender, and Oral Historian: Journeys into Epistemology and Pedagogy with Nwando Achebe
February 8, 2024 | 5 pm EST | Jacob Sleeper Auditorium, College of General Studies
Register here

Nwando Achebe is the Jack and Margaret Sweet Endowed Professor of History. A multi-award-winning historian and teacher, she also serves as the Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, as well as the Faculty Excellence Advocate (FEA) for the College of Social Science. Achebe is co-director of the Christie and Chinua Achebe Foundation; the founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of West African History (Michigan State University Press); member of the Executive Board of the Association for the Study of the World Wide African Diaspora  (ASWAD); past member of the African Studies Association’s (ASA) Board of Directors; and past co-convenor of ASA’s Women’s Caucus.

Dr. Achebe received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2000. In 1996 and 1998, she served as a Ford Foundation and Fulbright-Hays Scholar-in-Residence at The Institute of African Studies and History Department of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. She is also a 2000 Woodrow Wilson Women’s Studies Fellow. In the summers of 2014 and 2017, Dr. Achebe was Visiting Professor at Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.

Nwando Achebe’s research interests involve the use of oral history in the study of women, gender, and sexuality in Nigeria. She is the author of six books.

Previous speakers include:

  • Climate justice activist Jacqueline Patterson
  • Voting rights activist Cliff Albright
  • Award-winning artist Lynda Barry
  • Global health advocate Paul Farmer
  • Journalist and expert on liberal democracies Yascha Mounk
  • Award-winning author Dr. Emily Bernard
  • Jacob Holdt, author of American Pictures
  • Civil rights activist and attorney J.L. Chestnut, Racism in the U.S.
  • American trial attorney, novelist, and former mayor of Beverly Hills Robert Tanenbaum, American Identity: Law Literature
  • Ugandan academic, author and political commentator Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: As a Guide to Understanding Politics
  • “Father of sociobiology”, “Father of biodiversity” and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner E.O. Wilson, On the Common Ground Between the Humanities and the Sciences
  • British actress and BAFTA award-winner Miriam Margoyles (Professor Sprout in Harry Potter), Dicken’s Women
  • American physicist, author of the international bestseller Einstein’s Dreams, and social entrepreneur Dr. Alan Lightman
  • British public intellectual and literary theorist Terry Eagleton, The Death of Criticism
  • Irish American activist and author of All Souls and Easter Rising Michael Patrick MacDonald